


Him or Them

by Takada_Saiko



Series: Fallen [22]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Future Fic, Gen, previous Heirs, prompt request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-09-27
Packaged: 2019-01-06 05:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12204972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Takada_Saiko/pseuds/Takada_Saiko
Summary: Bobo has no idea what could have prompted Wynonna to ask him such a dangerous question. Future fic. Prompt #9: "Don’t ask me that"





	Him or Them

 

**Him or Them**

"Something's been bugging me."

Bobo turned from his perch on Deputy Marshal Dolls' desk, his feet propped in the currently - absent man's chair as he waited for Waverly and Jeremy to finish the search they were conducting on the computer. He hated the waiting, but sometimes there just wasn't any way around it. "Just one thing?" he drawled, glancing around at at Wynonna.

She motioned to his seat he'd chosen. "Dolls doesn't have a hat to steal so it's his desk, huh?"

The Revenant smirked. "That _does_ get under Holliday's skin, doesn't it?"

"You don't have to listen to him complain about it," the Earp Heir groused. "But you'll hear Dolls when he finds boot prints on his leather chair."

"I'm terrified," Bobo grumbled, rolling his eyes a little as he did. "That's what's been taking over your thoughts?"

Wynonna blinked, as if startled back to her original thought process. "No." She hopped on the desk with him and Bobo watched her carefully from the corner of his eye. She frowned a little and Bobo resisted the urge to sigh. For being tied much closer to the passing of time, mortals sure wasted a lot of it. "You know, I'm just going to come on out and ask."

"Please do," he huffed.

"Have you ever been directly responsible for one of the Heirs' deaths?"

Bobo Del Rey blinked. He'd seen and heard enough that it was tough to catch him by surprise, but if all the questions he might have predicted to roll off her tongue, that hadn't even made this list.

He narrowed his eyes a little. "Don't ask me that."

"Just did, and from your answer I'd say at least one."

Blue eyes slid closed and their owner drew in a deep breath. What could possibly have possessed Wynonna to ask that of all things? Didn't this alliance rest on shaky enough ground as it was without digging up some of the worst possible things? He didn't look for new reasons to hate her, she shouldn't look for new reasons to hate him. Simple. Or at least it should have been.

"Which one was it?"

"Really?" Bobo snapped and Wynonna quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Josiah or Edwin? Or both?" She shot him a pointed look and motioned to Jeremy and Waverly. "They're not going to be done for a while, and unless you've suddenly developed computer skills…."

He snorted. "I know how to use one."

"Uhhuh. Sure." There was a long stretch and she leaned back as if settling in. She wasn't going to let this go until he gave her something. Damn, she was stubborn. And far too much like Wyatt for either of their good.

Bobo shook his head, a low growl escaping him. "Edwin," he said at last, the name slipping from his lips. He hadn't spoken it in… years. He'd made himself a promise when he'd woken up on the floor of that church in 1929 after spending over forty years writhing in hell: he would never be the reason one of Wyatt's descendants met their end. He wouldn't let Clootie win like that. It had been a lofty goal born out of a desperation to find and hold onto anything from his former life, and one that he'd held onto through Josiah. He'd known the man, even liked him. Josiah had certainly known the name Robert Svane and at that point in time Bobo had still resembled the Heir's father's friend in some capacity. Bobo had been fighting his war with Lou when the Seven strung Josiah up, and while a little guilt had tugged on him, he'd been surprised to find it hadn't been as gut wrenching as he'd expected.

Then there had been a stretch of silence. Those that Josiah had put down with Peacemaker wouldn't rise until the next Heir came of age and Lou had been cast out of the little town, Robert - called Bobo by then, the name that he'd been given by his visiting angel once long before - reigning over them. There was… peace, of a kind, even as Edwin was already stirring. He hadn't been of age yet, though, so Bobo had been foolish enough to think he wasn't a threat.

The would-be Heir gathered support, though, from an organization called Black Badge. They were government and as Bobo heard the stirrings closer and closer to Edwin's twenty-seventh birthday, he approached him. He'd known his father. He'd known his grandfather. He was willing to keep peace between an Earp and the Revenants, keeping them occupied and distracted from the bloodlust bolstered by hell's own fires. He'd done it under Josiah and now that he had control over them without Lou to rile them, a true accord could be struck. Edwin had struck it.

And then Edwin had turned twenty-seven.

Bobo had reeled under Edwin's tenure as Heir. Eleven months. That's all he'd been there, and the Revenant leader had spent the first six trying to reason. He gave him the benefit of the doubt as Wyatt's grandson, but the sway he had had with Josiah didn't translate to Edwin. Yes, he met with Bobo. Yes, he spoke with him and discussed, but he was responsible to more than just his own destiny, the young Heir had explained.

Ten months into it Bobo finally decided that Black Badge didn't run Edwin at all. Edwin was calling the shots and playing Bobo for a damned fool.

The Revenants had been in near revolt. Edwin had downed too many of them. They wouldn't be driven from their home and outside the town, that much was conceded between them. Where Josiah had been more reasonable in the ones he took out - aiming for the worst of the worst and those that came after him and his family - Edwin lashed out at every creature whose eyes glowed red when confronted with Peacemaker. He was ambitious. He was dangerous. It was him or them, and it wouldn't be them.

Controlling a group of outlaws was difficult on a good day, but in the eleven months that Edwin Earp was Heir, Bobo nearly let it slip. He nearly let his love for Wyatt Earp - somehow lasting through the fires and all the betrayal he felt - end him dangling at the end of a noose same as Edwin. It was him or them, and he was their leader. Four of the Seven that had hunted down Josiah were still topside at that point. They rallied enough support from those that were left that if Bobo wanted to have any standing at the end of this, if he wanted to retain any control, he'd give the word to set them after Edwin and end this.

That damned promise rattled around in his head though. The same one he'd made himself when he'd first discovered that Constance Clootie had been right. He was a demon, but he'd hoped that that didn't mean he had to lose himself entirely to this curse. He had a deal with Edwin. They had shook on it, and a man's word was all he had.

He called a meeting with the ambitious Heir. Neutral ground, no weapons. That had been the deal. Bobo had met him in a field so that they could speak man to man. He had a wife, a son, people he cared about. There was plenty of leverage there, all he needed to do was apply the appropriate pressure. He'd always been good with words.

The shot had come from the hills just after he and Edwin had met. It wasn't from Peacemaker, but that didn't mean that it didn't hurt. The bullet dug deep, striking him in the upper back and pitching him forward with its force. Edwin had caught him, his grandfather's gun in his hand and it had glowed dangerously as he raised it. "I am doing this for my family," he had told Bobo.

There was a rage that came as part of the oh-so-lovely package deal of demondom. It burned as hot as hell's flames at times and could drive a Revenant to do terrible things. Bobo never let his get out of control. He was careful that way, but in that moment he'd reached out, his powers extended to grab ahold of Peacemaker and fling it to the side. The cries in the hills told him that Edwin's little sniper was being dispatched and Bobo leapt on the Heir himself, slamming him hard into the ground and he had felt the brand on his back burning.

Edwin looked like Wyatt. It was the eyes, he reckoned. Maybe in the lines around his mouth a bit too, but he didn't act like him.

Bobo's hands had closed around Edwin's throat and the Heir had clawed desperately at him, coughing and sputtering at the force applied. Those eyes so like Wyatt's had widened almost as if Bobo had somehow betrayed him. Funny. Edwin had been the one to ambush him. The Revenant had hoped to avoid this.

The Heir went still beneath him after a time and Bobo finally released him, sitting back and feeling the tug of the bullet wound in his back. It hurt, but it would heal. He had waved the approaching idiots off from the gun and told them to dispose of the body. What was left of the Seven strung up Edwin Earp and Levi photographed their prize.

"Well?"

Wynonna's voice cut through the memory like a blade and Bobo blinked hard, brought back to the present, finding the current Earp staring at him expectedly. "He shot me in the back so I had him strung up," Bobo said at last. It was mostly true. The girl didn't need details.

"You had him hanged?"

"He was dead long before he got the rope."

Wynonna loosed a breath. "Did my daddy know? That you killed his father?"

Bobo looked at her. "Do you think he would have worked with me if he did?"

"No," she answered slowly. "So why tell me?"

That was the question wasn't it? She wasn't like her father. No, Wynonna was much more Wyatt than she was Ward. She knew the stakes. She understood that they couldn't play by the rules Clootie had set if they really wanted to win.

He sighed. "Because despite what life's taught me… I trust you, Wynonna Earp."

Of all the answers he could have given, that was the one he hated the most. Mostly because it was true. He'd never learned his lesson that trusting an Earp could only cause him pain. Here he was all over again.

Bobo rocked forward, kicking the chair out and standing. Wynonna didn't say anything as he mumbled something about needing a smoke and to get him when they had the location Waverly and Jeremy were searching for, but he felt her gaze follow him until he rounded out of her line of sight.

* * *

 

Notes: Writing this I realized we've only had Five Heirs including Wynonna: Josiah, Edwin, Ward, Willa, and Wynonna. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Bobo had survived them all until Wynonna.


End file.
